April 15th, 2002

Mohanlal is a great actor. Be it the Carnatic singer of Bharatham, or underworld Don of Rajavinte Makan, police inspector of Mukham, businessman with psychological disorder in Aham, political leader in Iruvar, revengeful person in Oru Yathramozhi and Season, or those characters in Kireetam, Natotikkattu, Vaanaprastham, Amrutham Gamayah, Kanmadam, Ulsavappittennu and many other movies, he is one of the very few actors in Indian Cinema who can produce such wide range of emotions in a natural way. As many of the actors, he is also a person of mannerisms, and his dialogue delivery style remains the same irrespective of the background of character in most of the movies. I guess people also like to see him as Mohanlal himself in the movies. But he has again and again proved that he is very much above those mannerisms, through the above mentioned and many other movies. I have felt that the mere presence of Mohanlal makes any movie watchable.

I went to see the Hindi movie Company because it was the first Hindi movie in which Mohanlal acted, and also it was a Ramgopal Verma film. Mohanlal has nothing challenging to do in the movie, but whatever he has, he does it with natural ease. Newcomer Vivek Oberoi is excellent, and so is Ajay Devagon and the rest. The movie in general is a well made one, and is much above an average Hindi Cinema. But yet, emotionally or artistically it doesn't offer anything better than what Verma's Satya did few years back.

Unlike Satya, Company is a "formula film", and it is based on the formula that was established by Satya itself. When the gangster Bikku Mhathre was shot dead in Satya, I felt the abruptness of the scene as shocking. Never before in Hindi cinema a person was shot before issuing many warnings and shouting. It was these kind of fresh cuts, good acting, nice photography and editing, and a touch of humanitarianism that made Satya a very different and brilliant movie. But most of the cuts have copied in many other movies and they have already become cliches. Underworld and gangster killings have been romanticized in many other movies and so does Company, as attested by the audience of Urvashi theatre with a cheerful applause every time the gun barks at somebody's chest. Company just tells a different story in the same pattern of Satya. But it is a well packaged and technically good film, and is worth watching.